A hearing impaired person typically suffers from a loss of hearing sensitivity that is frequency dependent and dependent upon the sound level. Thus, a hearing impaired person may be able to hear certain frequencies, e.g., low frequencies, as well as a person with normal hearing, but unable to hear sounds with the same sensitivity as the person with normal hearing at other frequencies, e.g. high frequencies. At frequencies with reduced sensitivity, the hearing impaired person may be able to hear loud sounds as well as the person with normal hearing, but unable to hear soft sounds with the same sensitivity as the person with normal hearing. Thus, the hearing impaired person suffers from a loss of dynamic range.
Typically, a compressor in a hearing aid is used to compress the dynamic range of sound arriving at the hearing aid user in order to compensate the dynamic range loss of the user by matching the dynamic range of sound output by the hearing aid to the dynamic range of the hearing of that user. The slope of the input-output compressor transfer function (ΔI/ΔO) is referred to as the compression ratio. Generally the compression ratio required by a user is not constant over the entire input power range, i.e. typically the compressor characteristic has one or more knee-points.
Typically, the degree of dynamic hearing loss of a hearing impaired user is different in different frequency channels. Thus, compressors may be provided to perform differently in different frequency channels, thereby accounting for the frequency dependence of the hearing loss of the intended user. Such a multi-channel or multi-band compressor divides an input signal into two or more frequency channels or frequency bands and then compresses each channel or band separately. The parameters of the compressor, such as compression ratio, positions of knee-points, attack time constant, release time constant, etc. may be different for each frequency channel.
Efficient hearing of a person with normal hearing is binaural in nature and thus, utilizes two input signals, i.e. the binaural input signal, namely the sound pressure levels as detected at the eardrums in the right and left ear, respectively.
For example, human beings detect and localize sound sources in three-dimensional space by means of the binaural input signal. It is not fully known how the hearing extracts information about distance and direction to a sound source, but it is known that the hearing uses a number of cues for the determination. Among the cues are coloration, interaural time difference, interaural phase difference and interaural level difference.
A user listening to a sound source positioned at an angle to the right of the forward looking direction of the user will receive sound with a sound pressure level at the right ear that is higher than the sound pressure level received at the left ear. The sound will also arrive at the right ear prior to arrival at the left ear. Interaural level difference and interaural time difference are considered to be the most important directional cues used by the binaural hearing to determine the direction to the sound source.
The interaural level difference is highly frequency dependent. At low frequencies, where the wavelength of the sound is long relative to the head diameter, there is hardly any difference in sound pressure at the two ears. However, at high frequencies, where the wavelength is short, there may well be a 20-dB or greater difference due to the so-called head-shadow effect, where the far ear is in the sound shadow of the head.
For the determination of the azimuth direction to a sound source, it is believed that the interaural level difference ITD and the interaural time difference ILD are complementary. At low frequencies (below about 1.5 kHz), there is little ILD information, but the ITD shifts the waveform a fraction of a cycle, which is easily detected. At high frequencies (above about 1.5 kHz), there is ambiguity in the ITD, since there are several cycles of shift, but the ILD resolves this directional ambiguity.
Another aspect of binaural hearing is explained in U.S. Pat. No. 7,630,507 disclosing that loud sounds received at one ear of a person with normal hearing has a masking effect to sounds received at the other ear of the human, i.e. the sensitivity to sounds is reduced at the other ear. Binaural compression algorithms are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,630,507 for use in a binaural hearing aid system for restoring the binaural masking of normal hearing.